


The Road to Salvation

by RavensFan1989



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensFan1989/pseuds/RavensFan1989
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspector Javert's escape from the world of Jean Valjean didn't go exactly as he had planned. Valjean always has a way of showing up when Javert least expects it, even though by now he knows it shouldn't surprise him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road to Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic every (excluding the X-Files stories I wrote way back when that are long gone now). I welcome any and all criticism. I also had a sadder ending in mind so please let me know if you're interested in having me write that up for you.
> 
> Also, feel free to picture whatever Valjean and Javert you want to in your mind. I personally had Crowe and Jackman in mind but don't let my own imagination limit yours!

He was falling. As he fell, the only sensation he seemed to be aware of was the cold wind whipping against his face. He had his eyes closed so he didn’t see the water rushing up to meet him. Although, even if his eyes had been open, the water would have been nothing more than a vague outline to him because there were no stars out tonight and the moon was covered by clouds. Everything was black tonight, filled with darkness, his soul included.

Inspector Javert had lived in a world that was black and white. His faith was completely stowed away in God and the law. Mercy, fairness, empathy, sympathy…None of those were words that existed in Javert’s dictionary. Justice was all that mattered to him. The mantra that he lived by was that criminals could never change. Someone stealing a piece of bread for a starving child was no more deserving of mercy than a cold-blooded killer. Black and white. Someone was either a law-abiding citizen and would continue to be a law-abiding citizen for the rest of his or her life or someone was a criminal and would continue to be a criminal for the rest of his or her life.

Then Valjean had let him go. The convict had had every right to kill him but had let him go, admonishing the inspector, telling him that he had always been wrong. Criminals could change. Javert had always been wrong. The crushing weight of that thought had sent him to the bridge. How many people had he arrested for simply stealing food or clothes to help out another human? How many laws had he upheld that he should have been questioning his whole life? Javert couldn’t stand the shades of gray that Valjean had introduced to him. He couldn’t stand that he had lived his whole life unjustly, and he deserved the worst punishment possible: suicide, a great sin in the eyes of God. The self-killer was doomed to an eternity in Hell because they couldn’t make a final confession before death.

The fall wasn’t enough to kill him but the force was enough to make him unconscious as the river carried his body downstream…

 

***********

Javert opened his eyes on a candlelit room that was unfamiliar to him. Thoughts came tumbling back into his mind pell-mell…The bridge…the wind…the chill of water for the brief second that he had been conscious of it. He was supposed to be dead but this couldn’t be Hell. He could feel the mattress beneath him just as well as the warm, coarse blanket over him. The two candles on the nightstand next to the bed were hardly indicative of the heat that was supposed to permeate Hell.

Other than the bed and the nightstand, the room only contained one chair that was currently pulled up alongside the bed, as if someone had been keeping watch over him for however long he had been unconscious. His eyes scanned the room slowly until he had reassured himself that that someone wasn’t in the room right now. It wasn’t until he had satisfied himself of that fact that he realized why the blanket felt so coarse: he was naked. The good Samaritan that had brought him here and found it fit to remove his damp clothes to keep him from catching a cold. But was Samaritan the right word? He didn’t regret his choice on the bridge and would only try again as soon as he got out of wherever he was.

He only had time to note the lack of a single window in the room he had been brought to when he heard footsteps approaching the door. He could hear metal-on-metal when a key was fitted into the door’s lock. No windows. A locked door. Javert was a prisoner here. Whoever had brought him in clearly didn’t want him escaping anytime soon. He sat up in the bed, drawing the blanket close around him. The door began to open and his rescuer stepped into the room.

Javert could barely make out of the features of the man in the scarce light but he knew who it was; it was hard not to know the man he had spent almost two decades of his life hunting down. “Valjean,” he uttered, his body still too worn out to make it sound like anything more than a weak protestation. “I should have known that it would be you. You wouldn’t kill me yourself and now you won’t allow me to do the deed for you.” Javert went into a fit of coughing.

Valjean listened to his words with a passive face. He only moved forward when the inspector began to cough, reoccupying the seat that he had used to keep watch over Javert almost every hour that he had been with him. Valjean handed him the glass of water he had in his hand. “Drink, Javert,” he said, half expecting the inspector to oppose his instruction.

He didn’t, though. Javert gulped down the water as fast as his body would allow him to and set the empty glass beside the candles. He looked at the man who had been the bane of his life and spoke the one word that was itching to get out and, yet, he was afraid to say. “Why?”

Valjean had foreseen that question. He had thought long and hard about why he had rescued Javert. “Because you only were doing your duty, and no one should die for that.”

He had more to say but Javert interrupted him. “But my duty was always wrong. How many people suffered because of me…because I couldn’t show them mercy? I was supposed to protect lives, not ruin them.”

Valjean’s eyes were full of sorrow. He knew what Javert was going through. The Bishop of Digne had forced his worldview to suddenly change. Valjean had been able to cope with that which Javert seemed unable to. The Bishop had been able to see him through his tough time so it was only right that he do the same for the inspector. “ _Suffered_ … _Supposed to_. You are talking about the past. There is room for forgiveness in your present and in your future.” Valjean didn’t need to add that he, of all people, knew that. “There is room for hope, Javert.”

Hope. That was a foreign word to Javert. Never before had anyone ever told him to hope for anything, and here a convict (no, Valjean, he corrected himself) was telling to do just that. Sometimes one word could do what a million couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t deserve that eternity in Hell that he thought he had. Maybe he deserved that hope. If he could work towards forgiveness like Valjean had, then Heaven might not be closed off to him yet.

Javert could feel the corner of his lips twitch upwards in a smile—his first genuine smile in his life.

Valjean returned the expression.

The inspector owed the man his life. The “thank you” that he managed to say seemed so unimportant, although Valjean nodded in acceptance of those two words and would have been happy to leave it at that. Without knowing what he was doing, as if his body had a mind of its own, Javert leaned forward, heedless of the blanket that fell from around his chest, and raised one hand to Valjean’s cheek. A more earnest thank you came in the form of a chaste kiss because, like his smile, this was his first genuine kiss in his life.

What felt like an eternity to him was only a matter of seconds. He pulled away, saying, “I don’t…I don’t know why I did that.” And he truly didn’t know why. It had felt like the right thing to do, to be willing to give himself up completely to the man who had saved his life in more ways than one.

Before he could process what was happening, Valjean had stood up and vacated the chair for a seat on the bed. It had been his first kiss too, and how appropriate it had felt to him that two enemies (although, that sobriquet for their relationship was more on Javert’s part than it ever could have been on Valjean’s) should share their first kiss together.

Valjean wrapped one of Javert’s hands in both of his. “You should rest now. I’ll be back to check on you soon.” He planted a kiss on the inspector’s forehead and then left the room.

As much as he wanted to stay up and ponder on what that kiss had meant, Javert soon found himself drifting off to sleep.

 

***********

Javert woke a few hours later to find Valjean sitting in the chair. He didn’t know what to say but, thankfully, Valjean broke the silence by nodding towards the nightstand. “There’s some bread for you. I know it isn’t much but it’s all I have right now.”

The inspector sat up, this time not caring about using the blanket to try and cover himself as decently as possible, and grabbed the plate. While picking at the bread, he inquired, “And my clothes?”

“Almost dried,” Valjean answered. “The sun rose only an hour ago.”

He chewed his food in silence as Valjean watched. He set the plate aside and asked the question he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know the answer to. “And when I’m better will you let me go?” If he said yes, then he didn’t know where he would go or what he would with his life. If he said no, then what would become of him? Was he willing to be tied to Valjean or did he want his freedom, even if he didn’t know what he would do with it?

Valjean took a moment to think of a suitable response. “No, but not because I don’t trust that you want to live now. I won’t let you go because I don’t want to be parted from you.” With Cosette married to Marius, who did Valjean have left? Those few hours that Javert had been asleep had been used in reflection on his part. He cared for Javert more than he had ever wanted to admit in a way that traversed the care he felt towards the peasants he gave alms to every day. He had helped save Javert’s soul yet wasn’t ready to see that soul depart from him.

Javert was the master at keeping a stoic face but even he couldn’t stop his eyes widening in shock—and some suspicion—at Valjean’s words. “It was only a kiss…I didn’t mean anything by it,” he protested, not sure that he believed his own words.

It was Valjean this time who leaned forward and placed a hand on the inspector’s cheek. “I did,” he said, contentment written on his face. This time the kiss was far from chaste and, without once managing to break contact, Valjean found himself straddling a willing Javert.

 

***********

Javert thought it was a dream. That any second he would wake up and wonder why one kiss had made him dream of him and Valjean’s intimacy that went far beyond a kiss. But all the inspector had to do was turn his side to the side to see Valjean peacefully sleeping next to him. He wanted to wake the man up, to talk about what had just happened, but Valjean deserved the rest, after his constant vigilance over Javert when had first been brought to his home.

He traced the 24601 tattooed on Valjean’s chest, a sad reminder that one’s past always followed him around. Valjean stirred beneath the sheets and opened his eyes. Javert withdrew his finger with an apologetic, “I didn’t mean to wake you, Jean.” Calling him by his Christian name seemed like the most natural matter in the world now.

“It’s all right, Javert,” he replied, running a hand through the man’s hair, “I’m supposed to be watching after you, not sleeping the day away.” Whatever nourishment the bread had given the inspector had been used up so Valjean, as much as he didn’t want to move, got out of the bed. He looked at his clothes scattered about the floor and decided that they weren’t worth gathering up.

As Valjean began to move towards the door, three words came unbidden to Javert’s mind. Before he could think about the wisdom of uttering them, they were out of his mouth. “I love you.”

Valjean turned around. “I love you too.” It was amazing how one simple word could lift the soul into ecstasies it had never known before. Valjean loved Cosette, of course, but he knew that the love he felt for Javert was different, deeper and maybe even more meaningful, if one love could be more profound than another. With those words spoken, he left the room to see what he could gather up for Javert.

To love another person is to see the face of God. Only hours ago, he had attempted to commit a mortal sin. Now, he knew for the first time what it felt like to be loved. He had Valjean by his side to teach him where to start on his road towards forgiveness. Despair had been replaced by hope. There was a way to go on. Like so many people before him, Javert could only believe that Valjean had come from God. He was a saint who had given Javert everything he had never had in his life.

When the saint came back into the room carrying another plate of bread, all Javert could utter were those three words again. “I love you.” This time, he knew what he was saying.

Valjean let out a brief chuckle. “I know.” He stretched himself out on the bed next to Javert and handed him the plate.

The food didn’t interest Javert but he still ate because he knew that was what Valjean expected of him. He didn’t want to disappoint the man he had spent so long hunting down in any way. Their two souls had become one today. Failing Valjean would be failing himself again. Valjean had reached the light and now it was Javert’s turn to make the same journey—a journey that he never could have accomplished alone. To love another person was to see the face of God. As Javert’s free hand interlaced with Valjean’s own, he knew that he was one step closer towards salvation.


End file.
